of his nephew’s gallantry at a period of dejection in Britain:  for the winter was dreadful; every kind heart that went to bed with cold feet felt acutely for our soldiers on the frozen heights, and thoughts of heroes were as good as warming-pans.  Heroes we would have.  It happens in war as in wit, that all the birds of wonder fly to a flaring reputation.  He that has done one wild thing must necessarily have done the other; so Nevil found himself standing in the thick of a fame that blew rank eulogies on him for acts he had not performed.  The Earl of Romfrey forwarded hampers and a letter of praise.  ’They tell me that while you were facing the enemy, temporarily attaching yourself to one of the regiments—­I forget which, though I have heard it named—­you sprang out under fire on an eagle clawing a hare.  I like that.  I hope you had the benefit of the hare.  She is our property, and I have issued an injunction that she shall not go into the newspapers.’  Everard was entirely of a contrary opinion concerning the episode of eagle and hare, though it was a case of a bird of prey interfering with an object of the chase.  Nevil wrote home most entreatingly and imperatively, like one wincing, begging him to contradict that and certain other stories, and prescribing the form of a public renunciation of his proclaimed part in them.  ‘The hare,’ he sent word, ’is the property of young Michell of the Rodney, and he is the humanest and the gallantest fellow in the service.  I have written to my Lord.  Pray help to rid me of burdens that make me feel like a robber and impostor.’

Everard replied: 

’I have a letter from your captain, informing me that I am unlikely to see you home unless you learn to hold yourself in.  I wish you were in another battery than Robert Hall’s.  He forgets the force of example, however much of a dab he may be at precept.  But there you are, and please clap a hundredweight on your appetite for figuring, will you.  Do you think there is any good in helping to Frenchify our army?  I loathe a fellow who shoots at a medal.  I wager he is easy enough to be caught by circumvention—­put me in the open with him.  Tom Biggot, the boxer, went over to Paris, and stood in the ring with one of their dancing pugilists, and the first round he got a crack on the chin from the rogue’s foot; the second round he caught him by the lifted leg, and punished him till pec was all he could say of peccavi.  Fight the straightforward fight.  Hang flan!  Battle is a game of give and take, and if our men get elanned, we shall see them refusing to come up to time.  This new crossing and medalling is the devil’s own notion for upsetting a solid British line, and tempting fellows to get invalided that they may blaze it before the shopkeepers and their wives in the city.  Give us an army!—­none of your caperers.  Here are lots of circusy heroes coming home to rest after their fatigues.  One was spouting at a public dinner yesterday night.  He went into it upright, and he ran out of it upright—­at the head of his men!—­and here he is feasted by the citizens and making a speech upright, and my boy fronting the enemy!’